Big Data Moves Into Buildings
Reduce operating costs, boost energy efficiency, achieve sustainability goals: The energy data of a building or enterprise holds the key. But in and of itself, even a massive amount of data does not represent meaningful information. This is why building technology needs big data methods – processes to meaningfully correlate large amounts of data, like those that are being used in finance and marketing. Powerful analysis tools for energy management provide the necessary data from which suitable m...
Education for Sustainability’s Sake
By Jean Chui Energy efficiency and sustainability are at the heart of the philosophy on education of the United World College South East Asia (UWCSEA). From the facilities to its curriculum and student-led projects, the school made a big effort to green all its building and integrate sustainability into everyday life for its 3000 students. The college is supported by solutions from Siemens and ETH Zurich’s Future Cities Laboratory. In sunny Singapore atop the roof of the United World...
Jiangxi Electric Power Design Institute (JXEPDI) Increases Substation Design Efficiency
As an energy industry leader, the Power Construction Corporation of China (POWERCHINA) provides the full range of services from planning, survey, design, and engineering to finance, construction, installation, and operation and maintenance of hydropower, thermal power, new energy, and infrastructure projects. POWERCHINA’s subsidiary, Jiangxi Electric Power Design Institute (JXEPDI), delivered the 220 kilovolt Duxiling Substation for owner-operator China State Grid Corporation to support economic...
ScottishPower Strikes a Strategy for Asset Management and Process Safety
Energy company ScottishPower, a division of Iberdrola, was the first power generator and the second company in the world to be certified on BSI Publicly Available Specification 55 (PAS 55:2008), which benchmarks best practices, in asset management. AssetWise Performance Management and the Bentley Asset Performance Management (APM) Methodology, coupled with the Amor Group Process Safety Methodology and KPI Dashboard, played a key role in ScottishPower’s achievement. The Need for Change/Challeng...
Improving Pipeline Information Sharing
On September 9, 2010, a section of natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, California, exploded leading to significant property damage and the death of 9 people. The cause of the explosion was ultimately traced to defective welds and a decision to increase the pipeline operating pressure. Legal action was taken against the operating company, and a number of its executives are facing criminal indictments. Of particular interest is the charge, under the U.S. Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 1968,...
Situational Intelligence Aids Preparation for the Next Sandy
Severe weather – you can find it every day on the Weather channel, moving across America as large storms (often with tornadoes) that pose a direct threat to the lives and power supply for thousands of utility customers. Space-Time Insight situational intelligence helps utilities rapidly repair outages caused by severe weather. A 10-day outage for 288,000 customers: The $138 million bottom line A serious storm with major outages is expensive. Major events such as Hurricane Sandy can cost in the...
New NREL Facility in Denver Aimed at Smart Grid Research
A new, $135 million research laboratory at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden will be a one-of-a-kind facility, enabling researchers to test the impact of new devices and renewable-energy sources on the nation’s electricity grid in a controlled environment, NREL says. The electrical connections in the building will be capable of handling up to 1 megawatt of power, according to NREL officials. The project will enable researchers to test what happens to the nation’s elect...
Achieving Model-Based Design for the Smart Grid
Smart Meters and SCADA Contribute a Big Data Perspective Smart meters and intelligent electronic devices provide granular data about the state of the utility network in near real-time. The availability of such data is in no small part what is making the smart grid, well, smart. Now, this data is being harnessed by utilities for greater customer insight and designs that are informed by performance. In one sense, the smart-grid is a dynamic real-time system that adapts and heals as condition...
Sewer Heat Recovery Provides Low-Cost Recycled Energy
In every urban area, heat that humans have generated to shower, wash clothes, cook, and so on flows underground — in the sewers, making them very warm. Today, sewers represent the largest source of heat leakage in buildings. Even toilet water, which is at room temperature, is warm compared to the ground. Sewer air, pipe material (and thus conductivity), surrounding soil type, and other factors also affect the final temperature of waste water, according to Genevieve Tokgoz, Project Engineer in th...
Stormwater Interview with Robert Page, P.E., Vice President, HNTB
Santa Barbara County North Branch Jail Expansion
February Issue 2026
